Reclaiming Advent Week 2: Love

I I have a neighbour I avoid. So, as far as measuring myself on how loving I am I want to be clear right from the outset in this blog post - I am a work in progress. I don't go out of my way to be rude or mean to him. I just avoid him. And if I notice he hasn't been around, his lights aren't on in the morning or his garbage hasn't been taken in, I am sure to notify my husband to go and check things out. I'm just saying, I don't wish him ill. I just don't really want to spend time with him. I've been on his side of things in my life. I've been the shunned and avoided person.

Krista Tippett says, "Love is the superstar virtue of virtues, and the most watered down word in the English language." Talk is cheap. And it doesn't cost us anything to say I love you.

If you are a part of, or have been a part of any religious organization, you know that love is a high value. After all, God is love. Love is easy to declare. It's easy to sing about. But the truth is that in the places we would expect to find the most love - we can find the most discord. It's difficult to love. Especially if it gets in the way of our personal agendas. We come up with all sorts of reasons for not loving someone - including that they don't deserve our love. After all - we have limited resources and our lives are quite full. And then of course, there is the "I'm doing this out of love" reason for hurting someone.

Love is complicated. I am quite challenged by Ricahrd Rohr's comment in his book The Naked Now, "How you love anything is how you love everything." I'm still processing that thought. It stops me in my tracks. As my friend Wendy often says, "it's a beautiful thing when we get it right." And the fact that we get it right? That tells us that we have the capacity to love well.

Today is the second Sunday in Advent and I am inviting you to focus on love, today and this week. Take some time and light a candle for love. Create intention to be more open to giving and receiving love. Who needs your love right now? "Love is something we master in the moments," says Krista Tippet. Keep your eyes open for love. Start with your neighbour (that suggestion is for me). Simone Weil says, "In prayer we remember we are made of God and thus made of love." Prayer and meditation are powerful ways to remind us of what is most true.

I want to help make the season sacred for you - regardless of your religous beliefs or where you place your self on the spiritual spectrum. I’m not just going for sacred but also for truthful and honest and authentic. I want you embrace the mystery of this season and sit with all of it. And at the end of December, look back satsified you reclaimed the holidays.